Little Lights in my Heart - phan
by isthisjustphantasy
Summary: I wrote this at 2am when i got back from sitc so it probably doesn't make any sense whoops sry Phan (danxphil) from childhood to old age, and the effects of living in this world also some philosophical bullcrap
1. Chapter 1

_**The last of my delves into first person (Dan's POV) past tense – Human, For Phil and now this have all been a bit of a challenge to make myself get better at writing it even though I really dislike it so by now I should be pretty good at it idk anyway this is for Katie who's been begging me for ages to write child!phan but there's only like a paragraph of it whoops sorry**_

_**Also I wrote this at 2am when I got back from sitc and it's really long (6k whoops) so it doesn't make much sense sorry I met like all my idols in the phanfic world and was inspired to write /more/ bc they all have like a million times more fics than me and they're amazing so here goes omg Sorry it's really bad I don't like it sorrysorrry what even is this fic**_

* * *

_x_

* * *

_We're born with millions  
Of little lights shining in the dark  
And they show us the way.  
One lights up, every time you feel love in your heart  
One dies when it moves away._

I was seven when Phil first told me about the lights. The little lights, he called them. We were in the park where we'd first met three years earlier; only for the first time ever our parents had let us come alone. I knew Phil's mum was watching from the window and I was pretty sure Phil knew too but neither of us said anything, instead heading straight for the tunnel without needing to ask because no one could see us in there. It was small and smelt strongly of cheap metal and grass, but to us it was a fortress. Phil had sat at one end, small enough to cross his legs but too tall to sit up straight so his neck was bent down, his back curved and his silent blue eyes in mine. I was smaller than him then so I could lean against the smooth metal, hugging my knees to my chest and smiling. I used to smile a lot when I was little, I think that's why Phil liked me.

Mostly I talked and he listened, but that was okay. I would go on for hours about my day and my adventures and my plans for the future and he wouldn't say anything at all. And then sometimes he'd speak and I'd fall instantly silent and listen, because when he spoke magic poured from his lips.

"We're full of lights." He said, interrupting my theory as to how Mrs Jacobs _had_ to be a witch, his words echoing around the tunnel.

"What d'you mean?" I asked.

"I think when we're born we must have loads and loads because babies are sweet and lovely and stuff, but then the lights go out one by one as we get old. And that's why grownups are sad all the time and walk around all frowny and hardly ever smile. But kids are always happy. And then teenagers are sometimes happy but sometimes their lights go out and they get really sad and shout and cry a lot. By the time you get to be a grownup most of your brightest lights have burned out so you go to work because you're not light enough to have fun anymore so you work boringly and you make babies so that you can see their lights all bright and new which lights up a few more little ones to help you keep happy again for a while. And eventually all your lights burn out, and then you die. You might not _actually_ die, but you're completely pitch black dark inside so it's the same thing really. That's why some people never smile. Their lights have all gone out and they're dead but their bodies are still going so they're just walking around waiting for the bodies to catch up. And sometimes the lights go out all in a rush and the people get really sad because they still remember how bright they were but they can't get them back and that's when people kill themselves. They don't want to be a dead person in a body."

I just stared at him, my thumb in my mouth. Eventually, I nodded. He didn't say anything and I didn't say anything either. We just sat together in a metal tube in the middle of a greying play park in a suburban town that was nothing remarkable, graffiti coated and peeling, metal squeeling and swings rusting. But to me, that tunnel was made of solid silver shining in a park of gold and green.

* * *

x

* * *

It was automatic; we walked home from school together every day without fail, bags swinging at our sides and books under our arms. The next time I brought up the lights was on a day like this; mid-autumn at the beginning of year eight. I was talking, Phil was listening. I was telling him about Mr Chambers committing suicide in the locker rooms right before the new year sevens had PE and how we'd heard the screams three corridors down.

"I think, I think his lights must have all gone out. You know. Because his wife cheated on him and their kid got taken into care and he was going to be fired for being sad all the time and forgetting stuff. Like, you know, how you said when we were little?" I was silent, waiting for him to speak.

"Yeah, I guess." He said after a while. "But I don't think they were all gone, he wasn't dead yet. There was a little candle right deep inside but the blackness was so black he couldn't see it and he thought he was dead so he went but he could have stayed. He could have put some petrol on the fire and made it burn bright again and washed away the black, but no one bought him any petrol, I guess. I think one lights up every time you feel love in your heart. There was enough light in him for a little love, I think. The lights show us the way that's the thing – like a path you can follow. But when they move away too fast you can't keep up and then they're gone."

"Why do they move away?" I asked. I'd stopped looking over my shoulder to make sure no one was listening now, too engrossed in the world he was describing.

"Well the lights are love, if the love goes so do they. If your girlfriend leaves you that makes you sad because she's taken her light away – you didn't feel sad before you met her even though her light wasn't there because there was nothing gone. It's like, I don't know how to say it." He ran his fingers through his floppy fringe. "In your room it's light and you can see everything and to you everything is perfectly clear but then if you shine a spotlight it suddenly becomes even more clear. But then if you turn the light out only then will you think 'hey I can't see properly anymore'. When love leaves your heart, so does the light. Your love for things burns and then other people's love for you also burns but love shared is the brightest because your love for them and their love for you join together to make one really big light and then the problem is only one of you has to stop loving for the light to go out."

I just nodded. It made sense; no matter how weird the things Phil said were they always made sense if you listened carefully enough. It was these things that made him the only person I'd ever called my best friend. It didn't matter that most of the time he was quiet. Some people said he was scary, how you could look up in lessons and just find him staring at you with those steady blue eyes. Some of the girls teased him and called him a weirdo and he'd always say sorry and try to make it up to them but that just made them laugh even harder. It used to make me so mad. I just wanted to explain to them, to make them understand and seem him for what he really was. He was just as human as we were only he was on this other world parallel to ours – almost the same but also so, so much better and more beautiful. Sometimes it would be a brief sentence that had no relevance to the conversation yet somehow made everyone smile. Sometimes it was just a word or a noise. But every the time my ears would prick up, as if fine tuned to the specific timbre of his voice, and my body would turn by itself to listen.

It was Phil's little lights that made me think for the first time about my own. And the more I thought, the more I was able to pinpoint the moments they went out. And to realise the ones that slowly burnt out all by themselves without me noticing.

_One went out at a bus-stop in Edinburgh  
One went out in an English park _

* * *

x

* * *

It wasn't until we were older that Phil refined his theory – the littlest whitest lights were our innocence, so to speak. More the belief of love than the love itself.

He was fourteen and he'd just had his first kiss with Jessica Thomas behind the bike sheds. He whispered the story to me in the back of a maths class and I'd congratulated him with a hushed whoop and a pat on the back but he'd pushed me away. He told me that he'd felt a light go out somewhere deep inside and thought all day about what it could be but now he knew. It was the realisation that his only ever first kiss for the rest of his life was wet and sloppy and made him feel a little sick. And that there was no love and no magic and no sparkles and it made him think that love was just a thing in the stories that didn't exist and it scared him. And then I got scared. I asked him why people said they were in love and he told me it was just a word they used to explain their fear of eternal loneliness bringing them together so that at least one of them wouldn't have to die alone. And then Mr Barnes had yelled at us and Phil had refused to say another word until we were back at my house.

We sat on my bed, just talking about stuff until my mum came in to bring us milk and tell us to go to be even though we were really too old for it. It was a tradition, from the first ever sleepover where we'd watched finding nemo three times in a row to the Mario Kart marathons we were now accustomed to, we'd always had our milk before bed. It had got to the point where no one knew when to stop. When he slept over every other night how did we decide exactly which night we 'aged up'? So we drank our milk without a second's thought and turned off the TV until she'd left the room.

"Maaario!" Phil sang as the screen lit back up, volume right down low. He crossed his eyes and tipped backwards onto the bed, controller still gripped firmly in his hands.

I threw a pillow at his head with a laugh.

"Luigi!" I squeaked.

"Mario!" Phil growled as he crawled back upright.

"Luigi!"

"Mario!"

Luigi!"

"Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaario!" Phil launched himself at me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and tumbling us back into the pillows.

My mum banged angrily on the wall in between our bedrooms and we tried to stifle our laughter.

Eventually my ribs stopped shaking and I clutched my stomach with a groan.

"Ow. Don't make me laugh it hurts."

"What, never again?"

"No. It's clearly bad for you. To be avoided at all costs."

"Oh really…" Phil said with a wicked grin.

I started backing up as quickly as possible but I was in a corner and had nowhere to go. Phil was on me in a second digging his fingers into my ribs. I squirmed and yelled, my thrashing limbs flying out and hitting the wall until we heard my mum clamber out of bed with a yell. Phil sprung away from me, still doubled over with laughter and I struggled to regain my breath as he slipped down onto his camp-bed and pretended to sleep.

My mum burst through the door with a feral snarl.

"I have to be up for work at six thirty tomorrow morning, you boys wake me up again and you're sleeping outside!" She slammed the door behind her and we exploded with muffled guffaws again.

Phil scrambled back onto the bed with me shoving a corner of my duvet into his mouth as if to plug the laughter.

"Ew!" I whispered, still sniggering.

He winked and spat it out into my face and I recoiled with a stifled snort. I grabbed his arm and pulled until we fell back together on the mattress, breathing heavily. As we started to calm down I stared up at the glow in the dark stars I'd stuck to the ceiling when I was seven. I was thinking about the little lights. When I was around Phil, I could feel them burning bright and lighting the whole room. It was like he said, they light up every time you feel love in your heart. And I did love Phil – he was my best friend and he made me happy and complete in a way no one else did. _Blue eyed boy,_ I thought to myself, _you're special and I love you._

Of course I didn't say any of this out loud. As a fourteen year old boy, telling another male that you love them is never going to go down well even though I knew Phil would understand. So instead I lay in silence with Phil's warmth at my side. That's the sign of a true friend, absolute comfort even in silence. When I walk places I tend to go off into my mind and not say anything for a long time, but with Phil that's okay because he's in his world too. We walk at the same pace, so fine tuned that we often find ourselves walking in step by accident. We can just walk for hours without saying a word but still enjoying the simple company and now we lay in silence, listening to each other's breathing.

"Are you scared?" Phil spoke up suddenly.

"What of?" I asked, confused.

"Your first kiss. Now that I've told you how awful mine was."

"I guess." I admitted. "How bad was bad?"

"Pretty bad." He said quietly. "I don't think it's our fault though, it's all the books and the movies and the songs. It's just not like that. And if it wasn't for them maybe we wouldn't be let down so badly. Maybe if no one ever told us about love we might actually be able to experience it. But my first kiss was rushed and rubbish and neither of us knew what we were doing and I don't love her. I don't even like her that much, we just did it because we were there and we were desperate I guess. Desperate to lose our kissing virginity so we didn't have to ever say 'I've never kissed anyone' again. But now I think I wish I'd waited, not for someone I love because I think that's actually a lot rarer than we think. But for someone who meant something to me so that it could have meant something too. So that I could have looked back on it and smiled, you know? At the memory of the kiss but mostly of the memory of the person. I'll probably forget her name by the time I'm twenty."

We stared in sombre silence at my ceiling for a while; I was trying to think of people I could kiss and coming up blank and I guess Phil was pondering in that beautiful brain of his.

"I think," He said suddenly, "I'd have liked to have my first kiss with you instead."

I blinked.

"Oh." I said. "Are you… you know, _gay_, then?"

"No," He said shaking his head, "at least I don't think so. It's just you're my best friend – I actually do love you in the least homosexual way possible." He he tilted his head to poke his tongue out at me. "You know what I mean. But I do. You mean a lot to me, and I think the kiss would have had feeling. That was the main thing about Jess, there were just no feelings. There weren't any fireworks not even any passion or goosebumps or anything like my heart was beating really fast when she leaned in but then it just stopped when she started kissing me. Everything went really blank. All I was thinking about was trying to move my mouth like they do in the movies. And that's why I was so scared, I thought there was something wrong with me I thought that I didn't have the ability to love or that I was actually gay but I spoke to Ryan because he's kissed lots of girls and he said it was the same for everybody unless they're properly in love just no one ever speaks about it."

My brow furrowed and I frowned.

"I want my first kiss to be good though." I said, biting my lip. "There's no one I properly love. I'm not really friends with any girls. If what you're saying is the same for me then I think I'd rather have _my_ first kiss with you too, like no homo." I grinned.

"Do you want to?" He said, face serious. "I don't mind if you do. I think I would in your situation, even though we're not gay."

"But, that would be so weird…" I said uncertainly. "Like we wouldn't be able to ever look at each other again I swear."

Phil shrugged. "Girls do it all the time. I think it's only weird for guys because they have the whole 'anti gay' thing. But like, remember when Celeste and Kirsty told us in truth or dare that they practice kissing with each other to get better at it for when they get a boyfriend? And they said it wasn't weird because they're best friends and it's even got to the point when their kisses are better than any with a guy and I reckon they've got a point. With something like kissing the best is gonna be with someone who knows what you like and knows you so well they can predict your movements so you don't end up bumping heads or something. So like, I don't really mind. I want to test my theory too, but I get that it's your one and only first kiss and you don't want to waste it and stuff. It's just a suggestion. Because like, you're my best friend and I want you to have a better first kiss than me."

I considered for a moment.

"I guess it is kinda tragic that I'm fourteen and still haven't ever kissed anyone. But I dunno Phil. I'm not gay so does it even count? Surely it's no different from kissing my brother…"

He shrugged again. "Well, it's a very different kind of kissing and at least you'd know what to expect when your first proper kiss does come along and you might be a bit better at it. Especially if she's had a boyfriend before or something. But it's up to you - I don't mind because we're not going to tell anyone but I'm not that fussed about kissing a guy either. I just want to see if it turns out any lights like Jess did, you know."

I nodded slowly.

"Okay? I think…" I said after a moment.

"You sure? If it's really awful I'm gonna feel so bad though."

"Yeah. But we can't ever tell anyone okay?" My heart was racing now. I was going to kiss someone. It didn't really matter that it was Phil I just wanted to kiss _someone_ and I guess he was right, if I was awful at kissing and I'd kissed someone like Jessica she'd probably tell the whole school. But Phil wouldn't. He'd just help me. And I could stare at his eyes because they really _were_ beautiful, even though they were _boys'_ eyes.

He shuffled a little closer and tried to lean forwards but we were sitting cross legged and he couldn't reach properly. I giggled as we both shifted round to let our legs dangle off the edge of the bed, twisting our bodies back round to face each other.

"Just call me Philippa okay?" He grinned.

I grinned.

He leaned in.

I screwed my eyes shut and waited.

Even then I shuddered a little when our lips met. They weren't nearly as wet as I'd imagined and surprisingly warm and soft.

He pressed his lips to mine and then pulled away tentatively but I could feel the warmth of his mouth still close. I leant forwards this time to tell him it was okay, pressing out lips together again. This time he lingered on my mouth before gently opening his own. I mirrored his movements, it seemed easy really while I was just doing whatever he did. Responding, moving with him, still gently. Nothing like the passionate kisses in the movies. Soft and scared. I felt him lift his arm and then hesitate over my shoulder. My hand was awkwardly curled up on his waist, the other bunched into a fist on my lap. I just focused on keeping my eyes closed and concentrated on getting the kissing thing right. It wasn't too bad but it wasn't amazing either, it was a weird thing. I wondered who the first person to kiss someone was. People probably said ew a lot.

Phil's hand brushed my face by accident and he jerked it away. Slowly and deliberately I moved my hand from my lap to the base of his neck and he relaxed, allowing his hand to rest on my shoulder.

Kissing Phil was easier than I'd thought it would be. I knew Phil. I knew what he was going to do and when he was going to do it, I could tell when he wanted to change the angle or slow down or speed up because I wanted the same things. Kissing Phil was okay, actually.

I was thinking about the lights while I was kissing him. I was thinking about the one that went out when he kissed Jessica and waiting for one to go out in me, but it didn't feel like it would. It felt more like a light that was already there was burning more brightly. It wasn't like fireworks or anything, just a comfortable warmth. Phil's love for me was so close that our lights had merged and now they were lighting the whole room. But like, not in a weird way or a silly romantic way just in a _happy_ way. It was just like Phil had said – I didn't really _feel_ anything while I was kissing him, but at the same time it didn't feel disgusting or wrong. It felt okay. And a very, very little part of me was thinking _hey, I could get used to this._

When Phil pulled away I smiled and he smiled too.

"How are your lights?" I asked.

"Pretty good actually." He said.

* * *

x

* * *

We didn't speak about it ever even though sometimes I felt like I wanted to. I never kissed Phil Lester again.

I kissed girls though. And sometimes it was wet and sloppy and sometimes there was so much tongue that I could hardly breathe and then sometimes it was soft and sweet and gentle, almost like Phil. And instead of noting which base I got to like the other guys or trying to get my hands down their pants I watched for the lights.

Lights dimmed and flickered, some blazed up suddenly while others turned blue – if only for a second.

* * *

x

* * *

In year nine Phil Lester moved forms and I was left alone to make new friends. These lights were different, they were temperamental and flickering. They made me permanently paranoid and the tiniest wrong move could send one wavering dangerously. Their friendship was fickle. It relied solely on reputation and group politics and conformity so it wasn't long before I went everywhere with them, just to make sure they didn't abandon me. I never told them about the lights, but I still felt them.

_One went out in a night club, when I was fifteen,  
Little lights in my heart._

I did everything they did because if I didn't then I would have nowhere to go. I barely ever saw Phil anymore, he had a girlfriend and he spent all his time with her and all of a sudden I wasn't his closest friend anymore. Her light was new. It was so bright that it was blinding, and he couldn't see my little lights anymore.

_One went out when I lied to my mother;  
Said the cigarettes she found were not mine.  
One went out within me  
Now I smoke like a chimney;_

_It's getting dark in this heart of mine._

* * *

x

* * *

By the time I left secondary school I'd all but forgotten about Phil Lester. I remembered the little lights though, and I remembered the darkness when his moved away. I don't know what college he went to. Probably the same one as Phoebe, his newest girlfriend. I couldn't seem to keep a relationship, I couldn't make myself feel the love everyone else seemed to be basking in. I used to think something was wrong with me – I just couldn't make myself fall for people like that. No love in my heart, no new lights.

_One went out in the back streets of Manchester  
One went out in an airport in Spain  
One went out, have no doubt  
When I grew up and moved out  
Of the place where the boy used to play._

I went to Manchester University to study law. I got another girlfriend in the first week but she'd dumped me by the third. She just 'didn't feel the connection', but then neither did I.

_One went out when uncle Ben got his tumour.  
We used to fish and I fish no more.  
Though we will not return,  
I know one still burns  
On a fishing boat of the New Jersey Shore._

I had my line perfected by now. I boasted to my friends that I could pull in any club in any city with my sweet words, and it was true. I picked my girl; always with blue eyes, and I told her.

_We're born with millions  
Of little lights shining in the dark  
And they show us the way  
One lights up every time we feel love in our hearts  
One dies when it moves away._

Only after a while they stopped congratulating me and watching on jealously. Because now they all had girlfriends, steady relationships this time. One got pregnant. Another got engaged. And I was still pulling in clubs and going to work every day with a hangover and a pang of regret.

Two lights went out in quick succession when my parents died. My mum went first, breast cancer; and my dad followed her within the month. They said he died of a broken heart. He just wasted away and stopped eating or drinking or moving but I know what happened. His last light was dead and so was he.

I used to think I'd never had a broken heart, how could I when I'd never been in love?

But in those last weeks I spent by my dad's bedside he spoke to me. He told me about love and how it feels to be left behind and I realised then I'd been heartbroken most of my life. Since that day in year nine when I'd waited for Phil after school and he'd walked right past me with the prettiest girl in the school.

_We're born with millions  
Of little lights shining in our hearts  
And they die along the way  
Till we're old and we're cold  
And we're lying in the dark  
'Cause they'll all burn out one day _

I retired early. I knew I was running low on fuel, my life was cold and dark and I couldn't remember the last time I'd smiled. I moved to the village of Potterton near where I'd grown up – close enough that I could still get the bus into town and visit the play park and the school and my old house; but far enough away that I was able to live a quiet life in the country by myself.

I read the papers every day. There isn't much to do in a small house by yourself; so I read systematically cover to cover from the advertisements to the obituaries.

Maybe it was a bit morbid, reading the names of the dead. But I liked to imagine their lives – imagine the lights and the things that sparked them and then blew them out again before the end. I liked to think about the ones that still had light left in their hearts. I thought about how many lights they took down with them. Some dimmed many: their columns were full of simpering letters and memorials; candlelit vigils at seven and multiple remembrance services over the coming weeks.

Others just had a name and a date.

They were kinder. They weren't leaving anyone behind, the only lights dying were their own.

I had my name on my medication bracelet. They'd be able to tell the date by the newspaper on my lap when they found me. Now I was just waiting, waiting patiently for that last light. I knew which one it was. It was small and white and it burned just behind my heart.

I took a drag from my cigarette, flicking off the ash onto the porch. The arthritis in my fingers made even simple, everyday actions like this painful and I winced. With a grunt I heaved myself up out of the chair. My body had wasted through years of neglect; I had a potbelly now and my skin was knarled and littered with varicose veins and darkened age spots. Movement was slow. I was due for a hip replacement, but I wasn't sure I really wanted it anymore.

I walked with a cane, hunched over from years of bad posture. I remember thinking I'd never get old; that I'd rather die than not be able to walk properly. How young I was. How bright.

My old bones creaked as I made it down the path and bent painfully with a crack to pick up the newspaper. The boys down here had got lazy, they no longer had the time it seemed to walk up the path and put it through the letterbox. I grumbled to myself as I turned around and shuffled back up the steps.

The obituaries were short today. Three names in quick succession. A brief summary, a woman who won an award for a painting once; a published author and a chemist. A cot death. A car crash. Cancer. Heart attack. Stroke. I turned the page and blinked. Here was a long column, only one letter but it was longer than usual. I settled down to read.

_Philip Michael Lester. Aged 67. Natural causes._

I let out a long, slow breath.

_Follows a letter of remembrance from his neighbour Gladys Parton._

_I lived beside Philip for less than a year, which was still more than enough to mark him out as one of the most remarkable men I have ever met. He had worked for a small company most of his life but I can't imagine he was happy there – his mind was too beautiful for mundane tasks. I knew absolutely nothing about him and yet I feel as if I could see into his mind. I certainly knew him better than anyone else I ever met; he didn't seem to have any acquaintances and no family to mourn him which is why I am writing this letter. He is a man who deserves to be mourned._

_The paper might tell you he died of natural causes but I don't think that can be true. It was something he used to say to me; 'Gladys dear, it's getting dark in this heart of mine.' Those words shook me to the core even though I didn't have the faintest clue what they meant. I used to stare into his eyes and try to understand his mumblings, because I had the strange feeling that they held the key to the whole universe somehow. His eyes were the deepest blue. Mine have grown pale and watery with age, but his were still bright – at least until the last weeks._

_I think the last light left his heart when he gave up looking. What was he looking for? I'll never know, but I know it was a someone rather than a something. I asked him once and he confided in me that he had been single for 46 years and all I could do was ask myself: how? This was the purest, most beautiful soul I had ever to come across. But then I noticed a pattern: weekly bus trips into town. Train rides to Manchester once a month. He would leave in such high spirits, eyes alight – but when he came back they would be dead. Not three weeks ago I cornered him and told him to stop searching or at least let me search with him so he didn't look so sad after his trips, but he told me I didn't understand. He'd been searching for 46 long years, he knew it was fruitless but still he went because the last light left was the little white light of hope. 'Just a glimpse' he used to say, 'all I ask is one last glimpse of the only person ever to light a flame in my heart. It's too late Gladys dear, I know that. He will be married now with kids and grandkids and dogs and cats and God knows what else. But I want to see his lights again and the lights of his children. They were the most beautiful lights I ever saw, so soft and shy but always warm and smiling. So happy all the time. So friendly, no matter how cruel the world. The lights went for a while and that hurt to watch, but I know he'll have found his love and they'll be back and they'll be in his children too – bright and shining and new.'_

_That speech damn near broke my heart, and I'm a widower already but I feel like I've been widowed all over again. He was shining and beautiful but also sad and old just like the rest of us, yet more so._

_Phil Lester never found who he was looking for. He died alone and in the dark._

_I just hope the man he was searching for is as happy as he says, and that maybe he remembers strange old Phil with his swimming eyes and beautiful words somewhere in the back of his heart._

* * *

My last light went out without a sound.

_We're born with millions  
Of little lights shining in our hearts  
And they die along the way  
Till we're old and we're cold  
And we're lying in the dark  
'Cause they'll all burn out one day _

_They'll all burn out one day._


	2. Things He Never Did

_**The companion piece to Little Lights in my Heart following Phil's story set to another song by passenger – things you've never done.**_

_**This was really quickly written and even worse than all the little lights, just a compulsion. I do mean it when i say it's not very interesting and generally shitty- explanation at the end goodbye friends gold star if you make it to the end**_

* * *

x

* * *

_When you were younger  
Blue eyed boy wonder  
Always used to ponder  
On what life may hide._

Now that you're older  
The nights are so much colder  
Never even told him  
How you feel inside.

These were the words Phil Lester spoke aloud to himself one winter's night; alone in his small living room at the very top of the block of flats.

_You were so proud  
With your head up in the white clouds_

Regret is a cruel emotion. It's the possibilities that could have been that cause the ache deep inside. The knowledge that all he had to do was reach out, but Phil had let Dan Howell slip through his fingers and now he was alone with only his regret for company.

_Now that you're wiser  
You'd never compromise him  
Ever day you'd realise him  
But this bird has flown._

It was the kiss that sealed it. Something as simple and sweet and innocent as a first kiss lit so many lights until it was as if they were entwined in a halo. It was so different. Not like in the stories or the songs, just happier. Warmer. Completely comfortable.

Most of the time when Phil kissed girls he was tense; trying to make sure he was doing it right and utterly self conscious. Figuring out at what point he was supposed to move his hands and where to. Wondering endlessly if it was rude to come up for air or stop to flick his hair out of his eyes.

But with Dan it was different; they had laughed through the kiss and smiled at each other with light in their eyes. Phil had got a crick in his neck and pulled away without even thinking because he knew Dan would understand and move for him. He knew there was no awkwardness between them.

* * *

x

* * *

Phil asked a friend one day, what it was like to be in love. _It's like an intense friendship and complete security. But it's different for everyone and sometimes it's not clear straight away, not until they're gone and you realised how much you miss._

He frowned and was silent for a while, staring at the ground with his bottom lip between his teeth. _What about sex?_ He'd asked. _Is it endlessly perfect and utterly passionate? Is it really so romantic?_

Jack had furrowed his brow and looked him straight in the eye.

_"Mate,"_ He'd said, "_if you can't laugh during sex you're not doing it with the right person. It's not really romantic; it usually goes wrong anyway - especially if you're being adventurous. Or sometimes you slip out or fall over or whatever and you laugh and you smile and that's okay and I think that's love. At least it is for me."_

Phil remembers the way Dan had moved his hand to reassure him. He remembers the way Dan smiled when they stopped to readjust.

He remembers Dan's smile.

_And you've blown out all your candles one by one  
And you curse yourself for things you've never done._

Regret is a cruel emotion.

* * *

x

* * *

Phil remembers his first girlfriend: Charlotte; with her chocolate brown hair and periwinkle blue eyes. She was like something out of a movie, quiet and shy yet stunningly beautiful as the sheet of dark hair fell over her eyes casting her pale face into shadow. Phil had been dizzy with success when she'd said yes – she was perfect, a million guys would kill for the taste of her lips. And Phil wanted to make sure he was everything she deserved. He bought her flowers, took her to the movies and kissed her under lampposts. They went for long walks in the parks and finally he took her back to his house and up to his bedroom and tried to kiss her again but it was wooden, systematic and emotionless. Every touch was carefully measured, each kiss planted with pinpoint accuracy. But as she lay vulnerable on the bed she looked up at him through wide eyes with a furrow between her brows. An uncertainty in her eyes. And he looked down and bit his lip.

_I'm sorry,_ he'd said, _I can't do it._

And she'd just nodded and left without a word.

Phoebe came next. He was determined to do better this time; he got tips from all his friends and read romantic novels till his skin crawled.

She was beautiful too. Brown eyes this time and blonde-white hair that hung in messy ringlets down to her waist. And he did it better this time, focused instead on gaining trust and friendship as he would with anyone else. Their first kiss came after lying for hours in a blossom coated meadow just talking about nothing. Like he used to with Dan. And when she turned suddenly and pressed a kiss to his startled lips Phil had smiled. She felt warm and soft in his arms, and his hand seemed to fit safely into the curve of her waist. It was perfect. Only the lights didn't shine, they just glowed with warmth as they always did when he was happy.

He took this as a good sign - something he could build on - and so he put his heart and soul into Phoebe with the slender arms and delicate fingers. Phil was determined to fall in love. If Ryan Alderson could do it with a girl three years younger who wore short skirts and a full face of makeup then so could he.

The more he worked the easier it became. The kisses came freely and frequently, just out of habit and affection rather than necessity now. And they were sweet and soft. But he could tell she wanted more, that she was waiting for him. And he would do anything for her of course – so he did. He went to her house and lay in her four poster bed with the gossamer curtains floating down around them from the ceiling. And there amongst the duvets and the pillows he felt a small light flicker and die somewhere deep inside and he didn't smile, he just kissed her cheek and closed his eyes and tried to block out the image in his mind. The image of her smile as she looked up at him from the pillows – only it wasn't her smile he saw, it was Dan Howell's. It was only then he'd realised how similar the shade of their chocolate eyes.

Only he'd seen Dan kissing Katie Clark with the bright red lipstick and bleached blonde hair only last night. So he took a deep breath and opened his eyes to return Phoebe's smile.

* * *

x

* * *

He'd given his everything to Phoebe, throwing each spare minute into his desperate quest for true love until high school had passed him by and it was time to choose a college. He followed Phoebe without a second's thought even though she was going to an arts college. And then when he walked through the gates for the first time he blinked in horror for there was no familiar figure with brown hair and skinny jeans on the other side of the road. Here there were boys in chinos and carefully faded denim shorts – designed by the elite of the fashion industry to look like they'd come out of a charity shop in some quirky old town. Here people clutched pretentious sketchbooks and canvases and oversized art folders. There wasn't an MCR shirt in sight, and Phil was lost.

He'd wanted out since the first time someone had scorned him for listening to his music on mp3 rather than vinyl but he was scared of losing Phoebe. Scared of losing the emotion he'd taken so long to develop.

So he stayed. And he never saw Dan Howell again.

_You let it linger,  
Slip on through your fingers,  
So that September  
He moved across the land._

How your face dropped  
And how your heart stopped  
Sitting at the bus stop  
When they told you that he'd gone

So you run to the station  
Need to tell him that you love him  
As the train disappears  
You never felt so alone.

Dan was in Manchester University studying law. He was every parents dream, and he was Phil's too. His smile was all Phil saw when he closed his eyes. His face as he smiled at his new best friend and his beautiful girlfriend and his sea of admirers. Phil swore that one day he would find the money to move to Manchester and search till he was old and greying.

* * *

x

* * *

Phoebe was beautiful. Phil knew that, but so did so many others. It was the subtle tan of her skin – contrasting so harshly against Phil's pallid complexion. The white of her hair a shock against his blackened mop. Her tinkling laugh no longer sparking his sad blue eyes.

She told him the news mid January – four months after she had watched him run out of the door and down the street towards the train station.

_I'm pregnant._

_What?_

_Pregnant. I'm going to have a baby, and I want to keep it._

_Oh. I-_

_Do you love me?_

_What?_

_Do you love me? Am I the person you care most about in the world? Do you love me more than you've ever loved anyone and is it true love?_

_I don't understand I-_

_That's all I needed to know. Goodbye Phil, I don't want to raise my child with you. Because you're lovely and beautiful and incredible and you'd stay with us because you're too kind to leave. But you wouldn't be happy. And I don't want my baby growing up with that. We're not soul mates, Phil. We've both known that from day one. It was fun and it was nice but it wasn't love. You'll be like godfather or uncle or something like you'll still get to see your baby as much as you want - I would never take that away from you, don't worry. But we can't be together as a parent unit. You understand that don't you? I need to find someone else – my real other half I guess. It's time you found yours. Goodbye Phil, I know I'm going to miss you._

* * *

x

* * *

Phil had been there for the birth of his son. He had held her hand and rubbed her back and done whatever he could, but try as he might he couldn't escape the cold glare from Phoebe's mother on the other side of the bed.

_'Cause you've blown out all your candles one by one  
And you curse yourself for things you never done  
Where were you when his hour of need had come?  
Now you curse yourself for things you never done_

Phil didn't go to uni. He got a job in an office to help Phoebe pay for James (He chose the name. It was the first time he'd ever argued with Phoebe and he knew he'd hurt her, saying the words he'd told himself that he'd never say. _Please let me choose, it's all I want – all you're giving me when you're taking away my first and only son. Don't I get that one thing? That one little part of me in his life?_

And after it was decided and she lay sobbing quietly on the sofa cradling James in her arms he wondered to himself if he'd made the right decision. It was Dan's middle name; a living breathing reminder of the things he'd never done. Of the possibilities slipping away from him even now every second wasted in his office chair working for a son that would never truly be his.

Phil never got another girlfriend.

Before James was a year old Phoebe had found her soul mate, and within three years they were married. He was gorgeous and tanned with a mop of messy blonde hair above his sparkling blue eyes. Phil liked him. He was kind and gentle and funny, but they were never close. How could they be? Trying to find the perfect balance for raising a son that didn't truly belong to either of them. And how badly Phil wanted to leave then – travel the world in search for the boy he let slip through his fingers. A boy who was probably married now too and with kids of his own, but that didn't bother Phil. He would settle for friendship. For _their_ friendship. He wanted his best friend back, the one he'd known since nursery and shared every moment of his life with until he'd become so infatuated with finding the one that lit the lights in his heart that he'd let him slip out of his life.

He had thought he was setting Dan free. To be with the people on his level but far too cool for Phil and to sleep with all the girls at uni then become a successful, happy lawyer with a beautiful wife in a big house in the country somewhere.

But the light that had died that day at the train station still hurt him even now, the blackness clouding his eyes and making it hard to breathe. True love. It had been right under his eyes the whole time, but he'd been too blind to see it. Because friendship is the truest form of love. Because Dan's friendship was like nothing else he'd ever found, and now it was gone. And maybe if they had been together their love would have blossomed into something altogether more special, but it was too late now and Phil would never know if the things that could have been would have.

Sometimes when he lay in his creaky single bed at night he imagined this Dan. He imagined walking ghost like through his house and watching his hectic, love filled life unfold around him. The kids running to meet him at the door when he came home from work and the lights that lit up when he took them into his arms. The blonde haired blue eyed wife swooping down to peck him on the cheek and the blazing lights that would join around the happy family as they headed through to the kitchen for dinner.

Phil would think these things as he walked across the faded carpet of his flat to put a ready meal in the microwave and wait for the beep. He would think of them as he stood under a feeble stream of lukewarm water each morning, staring in the mirror at his pale flabby body and the damp hair hanging ragged over his eyes.

He watched the lights blossom in Phoebe's family. He watched the confusion in James' eyes each time he turned up to take him out for the day. _Uncle Phil is taking you to the zoo today!_ Phoebe would smile, and his little eyes would light up and Phil would take him in his arms and feel the warmth of millions of shining new little lights.

He was holding him in his arms the day they'd sat down to explain to him that Phil was his real Daddy, not beautiful Jason who picked him up from school and swung him high into the air. As he'd turned his green eyes round to his Phil had seen the light go out in a cloud of darkness and confusion.

* * *

x

* * *

Phil grew old. And as he did, he thought of Dan growing old somewhere near or maybe somewhere far. He wondered what Dan would look like now; if he was greying as much as Phil; If the circles under his eyes merged into deep wrinkles the way Phil's did; if his hairline was receding and his belly expanding.

But most of all he wondered if Dan ever thought of him. If he remembered the weirdo friend with the blue eyes and strange noises that had followed him around like a small puppy for so many years.

Now your grandson blonde haired blue eyed handsome,  
Calls you up from London and sits and asks you why.  
So your answer: don't be scared of failure,  
For the only failure is never to try.

* * *

x

* * *

_**okay so i wrote this because the repeater i was using to listen to all the little lights while i was writing that one sometimes fucked up and moved onto this song in the playlist and it just seemed to carry on so well from what i'd just been writing that i had to write it - i very nearly didn't post it but then i'd just been giving a pep talk to my friend persuading her not to be scared of posting something shitty so i felt guilty so now you have to read this sorry it's more than a bit shitty i'm not proud of it but i felt phil's side of the story needed closure idek if you're reading this then hi send me a joke bc i'm bored**_


End file.
